Means of Egress
by BookWorm77071
Summary: The siren goes off in the middle of the night at Lily Evans' department, and the rest of her fellow firefighters inform her that they're officially done helping the idiot who lives on Gryffindor and has called them over a dozen times in six weeks. So it looks like this is a job she'll have to take on herself. Short and fluffy Muggle AU, with the slightest dash angst.


**A/N: Hi, everyone! So I'm sure you're all thrilled to see I'm back with another Muggle AU instead of the next chapter of Sovereign Affairs. I promise I haven't abandoned it. I'm just...taking a long break. But I haven't stopped working on it!**

 **Anyway, this one's a little different then my normal fics, and full disclosure: everything I know about firefighters comes from the episodes of Fireman Sam I've seen with my brothers. So expect inaccuracies in that regard.**

 **Thanks to Chloe from alrightevans on tumblr for the prompt! Enjoy:)**

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Lily's already dressed, down the pole, and ready to go, waiting in the passenger seat of the truck before she realises no one else is coming.

She blinks. Did she imagine...? No, there's the brigade siren, wailing in the background. It won't shut off until the truck drives out.

Lily blinks again. Pinches herself. Yes, she's definitely awake.

Why isn't anybody coming? Some poor civilian home is going up in flames right now. A child could be dying. Or already dead.

Lily looks around. The siren has been going off for a minute and a half now, and none of her fellow firefighters are coming. This has never happened before. They're a professional bunch. Fire Captain McGonagall keeps them all in line.

She hears a _clank_ from the the second floor, a muffled curse, and a moment later she sees Marlene sliding down the pole.

"What're you all waiting for, then?" Lily asks her.

"Could ask you the same thing," Marlene grumbles. "Just go. Siren won't turn off until you do. We're trying to sleep, you know."

Lily blinks at her in disbelief. "I know we haven't cleaned this windshield in...ever, but it looks like you're just standing there, in your pyjamas, not getting on the truck and driving us to the fire."

"And," says Marlene.

"And _what_?"

"We haven't cleaned this windshield in ever and it looks like I'm just standing there. But's the wrong preposition."

" _But_ and _and_ are both conjunctions!" calls their fellow firefighter, Mary MacDonald, from their bunks.

"Shut up and go already!" Benjy Fenwick says, sleep and anger evident in his voice even though he is on the top floor, with Mary.

"Marlene, people are dying! Let's go!"

"Honestly, Lily no one's dying. Haven't you seen the location?"

"What's it matter-"

"It's at that dumb bloke's. The one on Gryffindor. He just moved there six weeks ago, and he's called the department fourteen times. He's an idiot," Marlene says, quite confidently, "and McGonagall says we don't have to go anymore."

"What?" Lily cries. "Are you-is she-for real?"

"Evans, really, calm down-"

"You're sentencing a civilian to death because you don't like him! And McGonagall's all right with it!"

"No one's sentencing him to any sort of death, honestly, and I didn't say I didn't like him. But he's a right dolt."

"This is insane," Lily says, half to herself, and throws herself in the driver's seat. "This is insane," she says again, slamming her foot down on the gas.

The drive to Gryffindor Court is a short one, but Lily feels every second, certain that this poor man is locked in his own home, smoke clouding his vision and his throat, his body trying and failing to fight the heat. Lily can nearly feel the flames licking her own form, feel the fire climbing up her legs...

Ugh. This is why she isn't supposed to take the truck anywhere alone. Under Fire Captain McGonagall, no one's supposed to take the truck anywhere alone, but she specifically. And though she pretended to be very upset at being singled out so, she was secretly very grateful.

Dumbledore had been a little more...liberal, as Fire Captain.

The truck's siren is the only the light in the night, and she can't hear any screams or smell any smoke, so it is abundantly clear even before she reaches the split-level house on Gryffindor that there is no fire.

Still, there might be a gas leak! Marlene and the others have no way of knowing until they show up! And even if the poor man's just a nervous civilian, well, isn't it there job to calm him down?

Lily sheds her heavy protective gear as she throws the truck in park and leaps out, racing to the door. She pauses for a moment and looks around. The house is clearly meant for more than one family, and she's not sure what storey the caller is on. Then again, protocol states that she has to evacuate everyone under the roof if there's a gas leak or something of the sort.

Just as she's decided to start with the ground floor, a voice from above her shouts, "Oi! Up here!"

Lily takes a step back on the porch and looks up. A man is half-out a window on the top floor, waving his arms.

A rather young man. Lily is surprised. By Marlene's description, she'd been expecting someone older. Elderly, perhaps.

"Don't think they've sent you before!" he says cheerfully. "Can you come get me down?"

"Yes; can you tell me what's happened, sir?" she calls back up, over the wail of the siren.

"No real cause for alarm! Just knocked over some furniture by accident and barricades the door, and set my smoke detector off! You know how it is!" He winks at her.

Lily blinks. How did one "accidentally" knock over enough furniture to barricade the door hard enough to keep themselves locked inside, and what reason would a smoke detector have for going off in the small hours?

But she's a far better firefighter to civilians than the likes of Marlene and Mary and Benjy and she's determined to prove it.

"I'll be right up, sir," she says.

"Cheers!"

Lily goes back to the truck and flicks the siren off and before setting up the ladder. She's never gone up without her crew-mates, but she's not particularly worried about falling or anything. This isn't the highest she's ever had to go, and with no real threat, she's not in any rush.

Lily climbs into the carriage the ladder holds and steers it up towards the man with the controller. When she reaches the second-floor window, the man has his head down, rubbing the bottom of his shirt furiously on something. Lily can't quite make out what he's holding because there are no lights on in his flat. She can't see his face very well.

"The smoke really wasn't doing anything to help my glasses," he says in a much softer voice than his previous yelling-down-thirty-feet, looking up to her questioning face.

"So there is smoke?" she says sharply.

"Oh, no, there was-I was cooking, and I, er, messed up a bit. But no need to worry, I've put it out." He smiles at her, and Lily smiles back.

Okay, so he's maybe a little eccentric! Is that a crime? He seems perfectly kind; Lily doesn't know why no one else would come. He isn't the only frequent flyer they've had, and knocking over the furniture and accidentally setting the smoke alarm off is far from the stupidest thing Lily's ever been called in for. Not since Fifty Shades of Grey came out.

"So, I'm going to help lift you out, sir" Lily says, inching closer to the window.

The man nods and puts on his glasses. He does a double take.

Lily turns around, expecting to see something frightening. "Sir, are you all right?" she asks, concerned.

"They've never sent you before!" he says, eyes wide. Slowly, his face splits into a broad grin. "I'd remember you."

"Er," she says. "Er, no, I've never answered any of your calls before. Anyway, have you ever been through this window before? Do you know what to do, sir?"

"You can call me James," he says, and he winks.

 _Winks._

Lily stifles a groan. Marlene's reaction is becoming more and more clear.

"Sir... _James_ ," she says at his pointed look, "I'm sure you'd like to get back to...er, your regular schedule, so if you could just start by slowly sitting on the ledge-"

"Whoa, what's the hurry, firelady?" he says, raising his hands up. "Why don't you come inside for a minute? Have a drink? When's the last time you've had a drink? You work too hard..." He eyes her arms, lean muscles visible in the light of the street lamps, whose glow just miss the man's form and flat . "I can tell," he says, and winks again.

Lily bites back more than just a groan this time. She can see why even McGonagall said they didn't have to come here anymore.

"Sir, please, just ease yourself into the basket, all right?"

"What's your name?" he says, ignoring her. Still smiling though. Quite broadly.

"Firefighter Evans," she says shortly.

"Evans...that's a nice name. Is that your surname? Mine's Potter. James Potter's always sounded great to me, but there's something about Evans...James _Evans._ Yeah, even better." And for the third time in the span of one minute (and the fourth time so far), he winks!

Lily's about ready to gouge his eyes out.

"Sir," she says, through gritted teeth, "if you don't climb out yourself, protocol says I need to get a crew inside and carry you."

"Oh, I bet you could do it yourself," Potter says flirtatiously. "You must spend a lot of time rescuing people from burning buildings, eh, Evans?"

"No, it's mostly just unlocking balcony exists for idiots who jam their front doors and the like," she says, unable to stop herself. "Not a lot of them have friends they can call to use a spare key, see."

Her eyes widen as soon as she hears herself finish her sentence. He may be a prat, but he's still a civilian who called for help, and even if Fire Captain McGonagall said they don't have to show up, she still did, and he could have her put on _trial_ , he could have her _investigated,_ he could have the whole brigade-

Lily's panicked thoughts are cut off by laughter.

"Guess that's what it looks like," he says, chortling still. "But I do have friends! They've just, well...they've had enough of me calling for help lately," he admits sheepishly.

Now Lily's the one who laughs.

"And I thought I'd gone and scared off the the whole of the fire department," he says, oddly encouraged by her laughter, "but then you showed up! I've gotten Firefighter McKinnon loads before-she doesn't like me very much-and Firefighter Fenwick, too, he saw me at my worst, I think. There was a slight gas-leak situation, but whatever, it all worked out in the end. One time I met your Fire Captain! She was definitely charmed, I could tell. She was only pretending to be irritated. Hard-to-get, you know the type."

James winks yet again, and this time, it makes Lily laugh.

"You could come inside, you know," he says. "I'm going to try and make the recipe I just messed up. I think I've got it figured out."

Lily laughs again, and she wonders if he's really that funny or if it's the hour.

"I can't," she says. "I've got to get you out and bring the truck back. I'm not supposed to take it out by myself."

"Oh, so no one else would come rescue me!" James says, connecting the dots. "And you're my knight in shining armour." He-what else?-winks. And oddly enough, it's growing on her.

"Come on," she says, "let me help you out."

James seats himself on the ledge and Lily takes hold of his legs. James ducks his head and shifts the rest of his body outside. Lily wraps an arm around his torso, and is carefully holds him for a few seconds before she sets him down beside her.

"You really are strong," he says, but now that he's fully engulfed in light and she can take him in, she doesn't have an answer. Or the ability to speak.

Lily's not quite sure what hits her first. How handsome he is, or that he's not wearing trousers.

He's obviously used to his own face, and he can't see it anyway, so he's clearly not distracted by it. And as for his literally-not-wearing-trousers-situation, well...he doesn't seem to be the least bit bothered.

Lily looks up at the sky, behind her, down at the truck, _anywhere_ but at him. She hits the controller with such force her hands stings, but that doesn't make it go any faster.

"How long have you been a firefighter for?" he asks her.

"Couple years," she mumbles, hoping he can't see how red she is in the lighting.

"I think it's really noble, you know. Better than what the police do, and you don't get half the credit! I think you lot are the real heroes."

Ah, Lily can't avoid his face at that. "I think you're right," she says, grinning despite herself. They have a rivalry with the local police precinct, obviously. The police do have more rapport and generate more awe with the civilians and they never let Lily's brigade forget it.

"When do you get off?" he asks.

"What?" Lily squeaks. Yes, _squeaks_.

"When do you get off call? Or duty, whatever it's called."

"Oh," she says, somehow going redder. "Oh, I'm off call at eight this morning."

"Breakfast?"

"Suppose so," Lily says, shrugging.

James laughs as they finally reach the truck. "No, I mean, with me. A date."

Lily's eyes widen. Is he seriously asking her out on a date? At three in the morning? As she rescues him from the house he locked himself inside? Trouser-less?

And is she seriously considering?

"I can cook," he adds, smiling at her.

"Ha!" Lily says. "Can you really?"

"Breakfast I can cook!" he says indignantly. "Pancakes and waffles and orange juice and cereal and the like."

"You don't cook orange juice and cereal!"

"Whatever, I mean I'm excellent at pouring."

"Oh, of course," Lily says. She laughs-again! She's never made this much conversation with a civilian while on duty before. Much less this pleasant.

"All right, then, James," she says. "I'll swing by when I get off call."

"Brilliant," he says, grinning.

Lily smiles as she leads him out of the ladder's basket and onto the ground.

"My name's Lily, by the way," she says.

"Lily. Firefighter Lily Evans. Pleased to meet you, Firefighter Lily Evans."

Hearing her full title always picks her up, but something about his voice makes it sound particularly lovely. "Pleased to meet you too, Civilian James Potter. Erm, also, where is the entrance to your floor?"

"Oh, er," says James. "It's not a split-level. I mean, it used to be, but a long time ago we made it a one-family house."

"Oh," Lily says, nodding slowly.

"Yeah, suitable for a big family. Lots of guests...and friends." James pauses for a moment. "Er, I grew up in this house, actually. I just moved back in. It had been empty for a while..." James hesitates. "My parents passed away," he said, shifting his gaze away.

"Oh," Lily says again, softer. "Oh, I'm sorry, James." Then, her voice softer still, she says, "My parents passed away, too."

James looks at her again. "Sorry," he says. His voice falls flat, but Lily knows it's not from lack of compassion. She understands. "Cancer?"

"No," she says, shaking her head, her voice barely a whisper. She holds her hands together. "A fire."

"Ah," James says.

They both look away. They catch each other's eye after a moment...and giggle.

James swallows. "Bit early for this, I think," he says.

"Yeah," she agrees. "We'll want to discuss this at a proper late hour, like eight or nine."

"Eight or nine," echoes James. He purses his lips. "You mind if we don't spend all of breakfast talking about our dead parents?"

"If I had known your parents were dead before you asked me, I wouldn't have said yes," Lily says. Then she wants to throw herself under the truck.

He's clearly just lost them! There's no way he's gotten to the dark-humour zone yet! Not this way, not this fast!

But he does laugh, to her immense relief.

"It's good," he says. "Laughing is good. I feel like everyone wants me to still be, like, crying all the time...laughing a little is good."

"Just ignore everyone else," Lily tells him. "It's such a confusing time...you hardly know what you want. So if you think you're doing something that feels good, keep doing it. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes you laugh. But don't listen to people when they tell you it's a straight progression, because that's such a lie. There are ups and downs and lefts and rights. It's not a diagonal line on a graph, it's more of a series of loops on both side of the paper."

James eyes light up. "That's it," he says. "That's it exactly."

Lily tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'd better head back," she says, climbing into the driver's seat. "Fire Captain McGonagall can't know I've been out...well, you've met her. But I'll see you in a few hours."

"Can't stay away, can you?" he says, and he winks again.

"Guess not," she says, and she winks too.

James' eyes widen, and she can't blame him. She's surprised even herself tonight.

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading! As always, a review would be much appreciated. Actually, this time I'd really like one because I feel like it's rather different than my normal style. And I'm always accepting prompts!**


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